Abstract. The paper can be understood as a contribution to the discussion about how to
involve "nature" or "materiality" in the undertakings of social or
cultural scientists or human geographers, but at the same time as a
theoretical conception of "physical geography in a strong sense" which can
no longer be understood as being in dichotomic opposition to human geography
and makes it possible to understand genuinely geographical processes and
qualities [Seinsweisen] as such.

Taking as a starting point the fact that there are physical geographers and
earth scientists who characterise their doing as a "conversation with the
earth", the paper reveals in which way it is appropriate to qualify this
doing as involving a kind of "double hermeneutics": namely due to a
foundational layer which arises from the process of experiencing
transitional formations of the natural appearances of the earth. The paper
also shows that due to this foundational layer, the chance of a revised
understanding of physical geography – i.e. of "physical geography in the
strong sense" – is already inherent in current physical geography as a
natural science. Moreover, the paper shows that its insights open up new
ways to understand pivotal traits of the history of geography. In this
sense, the old idea of a "geographical tact" is illuminated and unfolded
in a new way.